By Jonathan Allen (with assists from Jake "Fast Break" Sherman and Kevin Robillard, who gets a pat on the back for pulling the train this morning)

SIREN: MONEY THEFT: S&P DRAFT REPORT -- From POLITICO's Morning Money -- "Here, for the first time, is the draft press release that S&P sent to Treasury officials early Friday afternoon outlining their decision to strip the nation of its triple-A rating for the first time in history. The document led to an extraordinarily heated back-and-forth in which Treasury officials blasted S&P for making a $2 trillion error in its projections of U.S. debt as a percentage of GDP, a traditional rating factor.

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Treasury officials, already fed up with what they viewed as S&P's constant, ill-informed saber rattling, went ballistic, privately castigating the report as the product of gross incompetence. The officials noted that based on the corrected version, the longer-term U.S. debt ratios were broadly in line with other triple-A rated nations such as France and the U.K.. The officials urged S&P not do to anything Friday. They noted that under S&P's own calculations, U.S. debt-to-GDP won't match current debt levels in France for another decade. S&P ranks France triple-A.

Instead, S&P took out its bullet point on debt-to-GDP that had been near the top of its original release and pushed it lower and pumped up its reliance on what it viewed as political impediments to long-term debt reduction.

Despite renewed criticism from Treasury, S&P pushed the button on the final release at 8:20 p.m. on Friday night, leading to an outpouring of administration vitriol against the move as armchair political prognosticating by amateurs with no real understanding of Washington. The officials noted that despite the tough fight, votes for the debt ceiling deal were lopsided and the debt picture got better, not worse, undermining S&P's political argument.

The original release contained the following as its fifth (and largest) bullet point: "Even if the government fully implements [the debt ceiling] agreement, we project that the U.S.'s net public debt burden will continue to grow through the middle of the decade-and potentially beyond. Under our base case scenario, U.S. net public debt rises from 74% of GDP to 81% in 2015, and 93% by 2021. By contrast, for 'AAA' sovereigns we view as key peers of the U.S. - Canada, France, Germany, and the U.K. - we project their net public debt burdens to decline by, or even before, 2015."

The final release includes this paragraph on page 4: "Under our revised base case fiscal scenario--which we consider to be consistent with a 'AA+' long-term rating and a negative outlook--we now project that net general government debt would rise from an estimated 74% of GDP by the end of 2011 to 79% in 2015 and 85% by 2021" Draft release: http://politi.co/r76D0u Final release: http://politi.co/nMEj0u S&P on France: http://politi.co/pLCrRA

HUDDLE ANALYSIS: THEY'RE BOTH WRONG (OR THEY'RE BOTH RIGHT) -- No one outside the insular world of financial ratings agencies thinks that U.S. debt is anything less than the standard to which all other borrowing is applied, and no one outside the insular world of backroom debt-limit negotiations thinks that Washington's political system is even remotely close to functional.

THE NEXT TAX FIGHT: IT'S A GAS -- Newsweek’s Daniel Stone and Eleanor Clift report: “The famed tax activist Grover Norquist, whose alliance with the Tea Party faithful during the debt debate helped kill off any talk of tax hikes, has already set his sights on harnessing the Tea Party for another big, and until recently unexpected, tax battle. The annual federal excise tax on gasoline—which funds road and bridge construction—is set to expire Sept. 30. Normally its extension is automatic, but Norquist hopes to unleash the Tea Party’s fury to block its renewal, betting that the appeal of shaving the price of $4-a-gallon gas will have populist appeal.” http://bit.ly/oA216v

THIS YEAR -- OR THIS MONTH -- IN JERUSALEM -- “Eighty-one congressmen, or about 20 percent of the US House of Representatives, will visit Israel over the next three weeks during Congress’s summer recess, with the first group of 26 Democrats scheduled to arrive on Monday,” Herb Keinon writes in the Jerusalem Post. “The Democratic delegation will be followed by two Republican ones, bringing a total of 55 Republicans. Most of the representatives are freshmen congressmen, with 47 – or fully half of the freshmen Republicans voted into office in 2010 – making the trip. For many of them, this will be their first trip to Israel. The week-long trips are sponsored by the American Israel Education Foundation, a charitable organization affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which brings large delegations of congressmen here every other August.” http://bit.ly/qUhHja

WHERE ARE THEY NOW? THE SCANDAL-TAINTED -- Rep. David Wu has resigned. Former Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-Fla.), who admitted to a string of affairs after running on a family values platform -- and had a lover on his payroll -- was charged with driving under the influence over the weekend. "Mahoney was arrested on a DUI charge after police said they found him sleeping in his parked car on a South Florida road early Saturday," Kelli Kennedy reports for the Associated Press. "Mahoney, a Democrat who filled former Congressman Mark Foley's seat, was sleeping behind the wheel around 3 a.m. Saturday in Palm Beach Gardens, police said. Fifty-four year-old Mahoney was charged with DUI 'based on the investigation and after talking to the driver,' Palm Beach Gardens Police Commander William Brandt said." http://bit.ly/pnhbBU

CLARKE: DEBT-LIMIT FIGHT WAS A MAN PROBLEM -- 'The hard line and uncompromising tone in Washington may have something to do with male socialisation. This is according to US representative, Yvette Clarke of the 11th New York Congressional district. In a Trinidad and Tobago Guardian exclusive, Congresswoman Clarke attributed the recent political tug-of-war over the deficit to a mindset endemic in male culture. 'It is a non-negotiable, win-win, behavioural attitude that has been transferred to the political arena, to the detriment of the community,' she said," Glenville Ashby writes. http://bit.ly/q6FXz0

S&P'S SUPERBOOST: NEW COMMITTEE GETS TAILWIND ... -- "The downgrade of the United States government’s credit rating by Standard & Poor’s is almost sure to increase pressure on a new Congressional 'supercommittee' to mute ideological disagreements and recommend a package of deficit-reduction measures far exceeding its original goal of at least $1.5 trillion, lawmakers said Sunday,” Robert Pear writes for the New York Times. “Representative Blake Farenthold, a freshman Republican from Texas, said the S.&P. report could have a beneficial effect. 'Anything that encourages the new committee to get the job done and get us back on a rational fiscal path is a good thing,' Mr. Farenthold said. Another freshman Republican, Representative Steve Southerland II of Florida, said the credit report created 'a sense of urgency for the two parties to come together.' The possibility of a further downgrade 'scares me,' Mr. Southerland said.” http://nyti.ms/pytbmA

OR NO WIND AT ALL ... -- The Los Angeles Times’ Jim Puzzanghera, however, predicts that the downgrade won’t move the markets enough to force action: “A key to the political effects of the downgrade will be the reaction of financial markets Monday. Yet the markets might barely shudder, analysts said, partly because S&P damaged its credibility with its miscalculation of subprime mortgage risk during the housing boom. Besides, two other major companies maintained their top ratings of U.S. debt, at least for now, and investors worldwide still flocked to U.S. Treasury bonds as safe havens. 'The markets instill discipline on politicians and governments. It's got to be a scarier reaction than we're likely to see,' said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi in New York. 'There's too much disagreement at this stage.'" http://lat.ms/or6w8Q

LEFT BEHIND: CONGRESS -- Lyndsey Layton of the Washington Post reports on the administration's decision to implement education law changes through executive action, rather than the traditional lawmaking process. "With a growing number of states rebelling against the No Child Left Behind law and stalled efforts in Congress to reform it, the Obama administration says it will grant waivers to liberate states from a law that it considers dysfunctional," Layton writes. "Education Secretary Arne Duncan said he is taking action because of “universal clamoring” from officials in nearly every state, who say they cannot meet the unrealistic requirements of the nine-year-old federal education law." http://wapo.st/pX2k5p

GOOD MONDAY MORNING, and welcome to The Huddle, where we're hoping there will be real down time in the next few weeks but we know August is a great time for scandals to break, Mitt Romney -- who has been in "Mittness Protection" -- is coming out swinging today on the S&P downgrade, we'll be paying attention to the battle over the next potential government shutdown on Oct. 1 even as the debt-limit supercommittee starts meeting, it was great to see all of Mrs. Huddle's high school buddies this weekend, it's the 66th anniversary of the United States dropping an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, it's been 37 years since Richard Nixon announced he would resign the presidency, Jerry Tarkanian is 81, Dustin Hoffman is 74, and The Edge is 50.

Please send tips, suggestions, comments, complaints, corrections, your favorite political moment of this year so far, and sports scores (like Red Sox 3, Yankees 2 in extra innings) to jallen@politico.com. If you don't already, please follow me on Twitter @jonallendc. Fast Break is @JakeSherman, and Robillard is @PoliticoKevin. New followers include @morningmika and @TheDCVince.

TODAY IN CONGRESS -- Zippy

TOP STORY: THE CHOPPER CRASH -- ROUNDUP FROM POLITICO'S MORNING DEFENSE -- "THE CH-47 CHINOOK APPARENTLY WAS BROUGHT DOWN by a rocket-propelled grenade. The Taliban claimed they shot down the aircraft after luring U.S. forces into the area. http://bit.ly/oCXhoX THE VIETNAM WAR-ERA CHOPPER is both crucial and vulnerable in operations in eastern Afghanistan's rugged terrain. It can operate at higher altitudes than the more nimble Blackhawk and carry more troops. But the Taliban quickly learned how to bring them down with RPG fire, making any mission a risky one ... AFGHANS ARE WORRIED about that, seeing the crash as a sign of U.S. vulnerability at a crucial time for their country, the Los Angeles Times reports." http://lat.ms/nqtjxq

TOP TALKER: LIZZA GOES LONG ON BACHMANN -- The most-talked about story of the day in the smartypants set is likely to be Ryan Lizza’s 9,000-word profile of Michele Bachmann in the New Yorker, in which we learn that Bachmann doesn’t like be photographed in casual clothes, that her husband thought ‘Silver Fox’ was gay slang, and lots of more useful information about the presidential candidate. It's August, so you should have enough time to read it. http://nyr.kr/rsalws

--And on the Bachmann front, The Hill’s Russell Berman notes that the Bachmann-led Tea Party Caucus was absent during the debt limit debate, even though its first policy meeting back in February focused on the debt ceiling. http://bit.ly/oEsuM6

THE GREATER RECESSION: DOUPLE DIP WOULD BE DISASTER -- “If the economy falls back into recession, as many economists are now warning, the bloodletting could be a lot more painful than the last time around,” Catherine Rampell reports for the Times. “Given the tumult of the Great Recession, this may be hard to believe. But the economy is much weaker than it was at the outset of the last recession in December 2007, with most major measures of economic health — including jobs, incomes, output and industrial production — worse today than they were back then. And growth has been so weak that almost no ground has been recouped, even though a recovery technically started in June 2009. … When the last downturn hit, the credit bubble left Americans with lots of fat to cut, but a new one would force families to cut from the bone. Making things worse, policy makers used most of the economic tools at their disposal to combat the last recession, and have few options available.” http://nyti.ms/q5h334

PLAYED OUT: TOWN HALLS -- The Kansas City Star’s Dave Helling reports on the decreasing utility of the congressional town hall meeting. “The politicians maintain that town hall meetings can be helpful. But some activists argue that the value of the meetings is diminishing because they sometimes turn into planned political theater, not a constructive exchange of ideas. “Both sides are basically trying to stack the crowd,” said Carl Bearden, executive director of United for Missouri, a conservative grass-roots organizing group. “The nature of it is it becomes more of a political stage, which is totally unfortunate.” Some local representatives, however, are going ahead with town halls this August. U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder, for example, will hold a full-scale town hall Thursday in Olathe. He said he’s ready for angry rhetoric if it comes. “There is an element of folks that might come that aren’t there to actually conduct a town hall,” the Johnson County Republican said. “It certainly isn’t helpful, but that’s part of it. That’s part of being a congressman. … I’m just very patient and listen.” U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler, also a GOP newcomer to Congress, plans four town halls in one day this week. “She does think they’re important,” said spokesman Steve Walsh. “She enjoys it.” But Hartzler’s town halls are set for smaller communities in Missouri’s 4th Congressional District — Versailles, for example — where television cameras are less likely to show up, reducing the chances for a video fight. Activists from both parties may be tempted to engage in one anyway. In the YouTube age, any real confrontation can be easily transmitted to thousands of like-minded voters, giving some in attendance an incentive to become more aggressive.” http://bit.ly/oyuf59

THE DODD-FRANK LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES -- When you see an op-ed about Dodd-Frank running in the New York Times, you don’t expect it to be about Central Africa. “The “Loi Obama” or Obama Law — as the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform actof 2010 has become known in the region — includes an obscure provision that requires public companies to indicate what measures they are taking to ensure that minerals in their supply chain don’t benefit warlords in conflict-ravaged Congo. The provision came about in no small part because of the work of high-profile advocacy groups like the Enough Project and Global Witness, which have been working for an end to what they call “conflict minerals,” David Aronson writes. “Unfortunately, the Dodd-Frank law has had unintended and devastating consequences, as I saw firsthand on a trip to eastern Congo this summer. The law has brought about a de facto embargo on the minerals mined in the region, including tin, tungsten and the tantalum that is essential for making cellphones. The smelting companies that used to buy from eastern Congo have stopped. ... It’s easier to sidestep Congo than to sort out the complexities of Congolese politics — especially when minerals are readily available from other, safer countries. For locals, however, the law has been a catastrophe. In South Kivu Province, I heard from scores of artisanal miners and small-scale purchasers, who used to make a few dollars a day digging ore out of mountainsides with hand tools. Paltry as it may seem, this income was a lifeline for people in a region that was devastated by 32 years of misrule under the kleptocracy of Mobutu Sese Seko (when the country was known as Zaire) and that is now just beginning to emerge from over a decade of brutal war and internal strife. … Meanwhile, the law is benefiting some of the very people it was meant to single out. The chief beneficiary is Gen. Bosco Ntaganda, who is nicknamed The Terminator and is sought by the International Criminal Court. Ostensibly a member of the Congolese Army, he is in fact a freelance killer with his own ethnic Tutsi militia, which provides 'security' to traders smuggling minerals across the border to neighboring Rwanda.” http://nyti.ms/nZNSwS

STATE VISIT: KUCINICH TO THE OTHER WASHINGTON -- The Seattle Times’ Jim Brunner reports that unions in Washington state enthusiastically welcomed the Ohio congressman, whose potential bid in the Evergreen State has been met with skepticism by local party leaders: “Kucinich arrived to a hero's welcome Thursday. He was ushered into the convention hall by dozens of union activists wearing yellow T-shirts that read: 'Dennis!' 'I've followed Dennis for years. He's a voice of moral authority in the politics we have at this time,' said Peter Goodman, an organizer for the International Association of Heat & Frost Insulators & Allied Workers, who was wearing a Kucinich shirt. … Addressing hundreds of union delegates inside the SeaTac Doubletree Hotel ballroom, Kucinich delivered a fiery speech that had the crowd repeatedly rising to its feet and joining him in chants of 'We are union!' … Kucinich, in an interview, said he still hasn't decided where he'll run in 2012 or even which way he is leaning. But Kucinich said we'll continue to see him in Washington. 'I like coming here," he said. "It's friendly and I feel at home. I keep getting invitations. Now the invitations are starting to come in several a week.'" http://bit.ly/pTVn5D

TODAY'S TRIVIA -- Who said this: "I'm no lady. I'm a member of Congress and I shall proceed accordingly." Send answers to jallen@politico.com. Prize: Mention in Tuesday's Huddle.

THE NATS' LINE -- Yesterday in Denver, Jayson Werth swatted an RBI single to left field to give the Nats a 3-2 lead that they wouldn't relinquish. Drew Storen picked up his 29th save. More important, righty Stephen Strasburg made his first minor league appearance since undergoing "Tommy John" surgery. He gave up a solo home run and struck out four batters in 1 2/3 innings (he was given a 35-pitch limit). Strasburg's fastball touched 97 mph, according to mlb.com

THE WEATHER -- "Heat and humidity lingers with some relief by late-week," Brian van de Graaff reports for ABC-7. High in the mid-90s.

Authors:

About The Author

Jonathan Allen is POLITICO’s senior Washington correspondent and focuses his reporting on the nexus of politics and policy. He is a winner of the National Press Foundation’s Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of Congress and the National Press Club’s Sandy Hume Award for Excellence in Political Journalism. A graduate of the University of Maryland, Jonathan was born in Silver Spring, Md., and lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and son. He frequently speaks to groups about politics and journalism, taught a course at Northwestern University in 2012, and appears as a guest analyst on national television and local radio programs.